Believe it or not somewhere in this mess there is a method.
It’s my first job managing an entire project, making decisions, moving things.
If I do not send out an email or call a meeting, nothing moves.
At this present
moment my life is surrounded by pressure, some bright days when I run off and
hide in the comfort of my living room, watch my bell peppers and tomatoes grow
and dream of a day when I will have my very own personal assistant. Isn't it interesting
that human beings have a need to own things, people and animals? Someone I know often reiterates that
Americans have a need more than any people to control something or anything. Whenever he sees people walking
around with their dogs on a leash he compares it to being in Africa where the
dogs run free and return when the sun sets.
However, when you think about America, the
idea of privacy has numerous facets to it. Privacy ranges from not evading
another’s space on the bus, train and in one’s home; but when it comes to the
media; what one does, writes, photography there is absolutely no privacy. In
Africa, yes Africa that one big country, I said it – bite me! I hate borders –
but this is a topic for another day. Well, in Africa, the notion of privacy is invisible.
We do not think, talk or act it. When I was growing up, I got told off for
things I was doing wrong by the neighbors and all my relatives, distant and
near, people from church and even my own older siblings who sometimes took out
a cane to discipline me. A child’s life is not their own or even their parents only.
Today I had a meeting with a partner firm I am working with
and was pressing the need for privacy for refugees in a camp while we
undertake the research project out there. The partner said to me, ‘the notion of privacy for refugees in a camp
is absolutely different from what you are speaking of. In a camp xx refugees as
old as my grandparents take a bath in the open, nothing is private,’ this not
because they want to, but because its the hand they have been dealt.
Maybe I'm stretching it when I make reference to refugees. Refugees are special in that
they have no control whatsoever as to what has happened and what
is happening to them. Non-refugees on the continent do have a sense of control
over their lives but in a collective sense. We control our families, everyone
chips in, many times my parents will call me to talk to a sibling or cousin
about something they would rather have someone else say and my siblings will
call me to speak to my parents about something that they are fed up of bringing
up, relatives will ask my parents about me and throw in their ten cents about
my unconventional lifestyle – why do I wear my hair like that? Why does she
travel too much? Why doesn't she have any children yet?
My desire for a personal assistant, maybe an
intern who can get all my work done, is evidence of my transition from the
collective to the individual. I want to own something of my own, to say that I
have someone who you can contact instead of coming straight to me; to get my
work done so that I have less to do -to have the freedom to thrive without
pressure. One of my girlfriends would say, this is a good control.
